What a wonderfull match, where soul goes hand in hand with V 8 power .
I have the convergent 2 days in my system now and i can say its one of the best improvements i have made to date , it gives involvement and makes cd listenable again at least in my system
The room is fairly large with a wooden floor with a lot of glass and overlooking town
Front end is the new sme 20 3a with several carts , the one i use most is a london decca .
cabling is cheap of the market stuff profigold mainly .
speakers are own designs with ceramic mids and a 20 mm diamond tweeter and that s what so good about it , it completely removed any hard /mechanical sounds from the system and just lets it flow in a very involving way .
We have another thread for epiphanies, but I can not resist to list a great system I listened at a friend's house: Krell KSA-300s - CAT SL1 Mk2 preamplifer - Forsell CD and DAC - Apogee Duetta and my contribution - a complete set of MIT top cables - the heavy MH750 CVT terminator and respective MH330 CVT terminator RCA cables. I can not remember the name of the percussion CD of the Three Blind Mice (TBM) label that we listened that day, but there was no room left - only floating music with high energy and a touch and see holography. I can not resist paraphrasing a post in another thread - we also saw " the molecules of bronze dancing with each wack of the drum skin" - thanks, Russ.
If it was not for the absence of the remote and the too large volume steps of the CAT I would have bought one at that time.
I'll be in Amsterdam in October to attend ADE. Corr Dekker of Musical Reality is an old friend and I'll be dropping in on him. Perhaps I can pay you a quick visit too. Your loudspeaker designs look interesting.
What a wonderfull match, where soul goes hand in hand with V 8 power .
I have the convergent 2 days in my system now and i can say its one of the best improvements i have made to date , it gives involvement and makes cd listenable again at least in my system
Hj, you might consider rolling tubes into your CAT. I rolled in '63 NOS GE long-plates and the CAT went MEOW WOW!
I am now considering rolling in Mullards into the line section.
IMO, if you truly want to hear what your CAT can do, then rolling in tubes is the way to go....You may be amazed at the improvement
Ken Stevens likes the tubes that he spec's for the preamp, however, replacing the stock tubes with some of the better NOS tubes out there, is like adding nitro to a high powered gas engine.
Hallo jack , just call me when you are in amsterdam and you can drop by , i know eurogram , i think they import vonschweikert , kr enterprise and some more.
I might even have another , more exclusive model ready by then , my number is on the site under "contact" .
davey F , yeah i might do some tube rolling later on , i also might go straight for the legend and jl3 s someday and skip all whats in between , any idea what tubes will be a litlle quiter on phonostage .
The tubes that will be the most quiet in the CAT phono stage (or any tube phono stage for that matter) are tubes that have been tested and selected for low noise. It's tough to beat RAM labs for low noise tubes. Michael Elliott also does a great job of grading tubes for noise. Kevin Deal isn't bad either. Buying "super" NOS tubes from Ebay and hoping they have low noise is a crap shoot at best. I have a box full of "super" NOS 6922s that are unusable due to either noise or microphonics. Ken Stevens knows what he is doing when he selects tubes for his preamps. Just because you buy some NOS Mullard, Amperex, Phillips, Siemens, Telefunken, etc. tubes doesn't mean a damn thing until you hear them. I have bad examples of all of them. I would much rather have a current production tube that has made the cut for low noise (usually 1 out of 100) than a "super" NOS tube that hasn't been graded for noise and I get to find out how quiet it is after I shell out the long green for them.
The tubes that will be the most quiet in the CAT phono stage (or any tube phono stage for that matter) are tubes that have been tested and selected for low noise. It's tough to beat RAM labs for low noise tubes. Michael Elliott also does a great job of grading tubes for noise. Kevin Deal isn't bad either. Buying "super" NOS tubes from Ebay and hoping they have low noise is a crap shoot at best. I have a box full of "super" NOS 6922s that are unusable due to either noise or microphonics. Ken Stevens knows what he is doing when he selects tubes for his preamps. Just because you buy some NOS Mullard, Amperex, Phillips, Siemens, Telefunken, etc. tubes doesn't mean a damn thing until you hear them. I have bad examples of all of them. I would much rather have a current production tube that has made the cut for low noise (usually 1 out of 100) than a "super" NOS tube that hasn't been graded for noise and I get to find out how quiet it is after I shell out the long green for them.
Mark is correct. Low noise tubes are the most important aspect regardless of brand. Jim McShane and the other dealers that Mark suggested are able to recommend quiet tubes for the phono stage. Kevin Deal suggested my NOS GE's and they worked wonders. Unfortunately, speaking to Kevin recently, he told me that these particular tubes are getting unobtanium and his remaining stock are now long green!
So, any of the above dealers would be a good source for the best selection of tubes to try out. BTW, Ken Stevens does select good tubes for his products, however, I do believe that these same tubes can be bettered and in some instances significantly so.....At least that has been my experience
The tubes that will be the most quiet in the CAT phono stage (or any tube phono stage for that matter) are tubes that have been tested and selected for low noise. It's tough to beat RAM labs for low noise tubes. Michael Elliott also does a great job of grading tubes for noise. Kevin Deal isn't bad either. Buying "super" NOS tubes from Ebay and hoping they have low noise is a crap shoot at best. I have a box full of "super" NOS 6922s that are unusable due to either noise or microphonics. Ken Stevens knows what he is doing when he selects tubes for his preamps. Just because you buy some NOS Mullard, Amperex, Phillips, Siemens, Telefunken, etc. tubes doesn't mean a damn thing until you hear them. I have bad examples of all of them. I would much rather have a current production tube that has made the cut for low noise (usually 1 out of 100) than a "super" NOS tube that hasn't been graded for noise and I get to find out how quiet it is after I shell out the long green for them.
That's exactly what I wrote about in my recent phono section review--and this issue of low noise tubes is ever so important when dealing with a phono section!!!
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